The rapidly spreading swine flu, which fist appeared early last week in Mexico, caused the White House to declare a “Public Health Emergency” this afternoon.

—————–

UPDATE What caused this man-made disease?

For the record, I am not implying any type of conspiracy theory.  However, I am pointing a finger at lax security protocols and/or corporate greed.  

From what I have read during the past 2 days coupled with what I’ve researched over several years and now with updated swine flu reports, I believe that this virus is most likely the result of human activity.  It could be caused by scientists studying viruses in attempts to produce vaccines or from unsanitary factory farms, which decimate the environment and communities surrounding them.  These factories have entire lakes filled with pig feces and are leaching into the surrounding water table, are the cause of this “created” virus.

Unsanitary factory farms contaminate ground water.  Unsanitary conditions and a lack of clean water create a breeding ground and facilitate the spread of infectious disease.  Just two weeks ago for example in Mexico City,

about five million people, or a quarter of the population of Mexico City’s urban sprawl, woke up with dry taps

, according to Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/world…

The drought was caused by the biggest stoppage in the city’s main reservoir system in recent years to ration its depleting supplies.

More after the jump.

Vermont Natural Resources Council is currently showing the film Blue Gold – World Water Wars for its Second Annual Terry Ehrich Film Series.  The Vermont premier of the film Blue Gold: World Water Wars (based on the internationally acclaimed book by water activist Maude Barlow)is running April 26th – June 18th.  I saw it last night, and it speaks to the issue of water contamination and privatization of our precious water resources.  See it!  Go to http://www.vnrc.org/article/vi… to see a clip and schedule.

Whichever scenario turns out to be the true:  factory farms contaminating ground water or lax protocols at independent labs, it is unlikely we will know the truth for months or even years, if at all.  The responsible corporations or the government protection of biological laboratories will fight to obfuscate all inquiries in an effort to protect the involved corporations and/or governments from liability.

http://tinyurl.com/c4dcmc

According to Guardian, UK’s article, “The swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry’s monstrous power”

The Mexico swine flu outbreak should alert us to a highly globalised industry with global political clout.  The Mexican swine flu, a genetic chimera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty, suddenly threatens to give the whole world a fever. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already travelling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.

Other documents support that there has been a significant increase in the number of viral labs throughout the world.  I am unable to locate a story I read last year, that just in the US alone, the number of small pharmacological labs studying various viruses and trying to develop vaccines has increased in number 20 times.  These labs were granted permits by the Bush Administration, however, no specific standards are in place for regulating the labs or delineating the protocols necessary to make sure that no viruses under research escape.  I searched my computer and bookmarks and unfortunately cannot locate either that particular link or that story.

But although I am unable to find that particular story, the following stories from the NY Times substantiate what I am saying.  I believe we must change the world health paradigm by cleaning up our environment, using clean, natural and organic farming techniques, having plenty of clean drinking water available for all people and minimizing the production of man-made viruses as well as the alleged magic bullet of vaccines or emergency drugs our pharmaceutical companies are creating to fight them.  

The drugs used to fight viruses and bacterial diseases are not without significant side-effects and risks, and the West’s extensive reliance on germ-fighting solutions are creating drug resistant viruses and bacteria.  Let’s hope that today’s Mexican Swine Flu reality does not become the dreaded world pandemic, and let’s use this incident to begun to make the changes that doctors and scientists throughout the world have been recommending!

New York Times By JANE PERLEZ  Published: August 6, 2007

LONDON, Aug. 5 –

British health inspectors combed two veterinary laboratories in southern England on Sunday after it was discovered that the strain of foot-and-mouth disease at a farm four miles away was the same as the one used in the production of vaccine at the facilities.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08…

NY Times September 30, 2003 THE DOCTOR’S WORLD; On Guard Against SARS, Inside the Laboratory and Out

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.

In their vigil for a possible return of SARS, health officials have focused mainly on finding where the virus hides in nature.

But the case of severe acute respiratory syndrome in a 27-year-old doctoral student in Singapore has shown an equally important risk — escape of the virus from a laboratory.

The case adds to thousands of other infections accidentally acquired in a laboratory over the years.

Last week, a World Health Organization committee that investigated the case concluded that the student most likely became infected in August through contamination in a laboratory where he worked on another virus.

”Inappropriate laboratory standards and a cross-contamination of West Nile virus samples with SARS coronavirus in the laboratory led to the infection of the doctoral student,” the committee reported.

In a separate incident that occurred after the Singapore case was detected, the Chinese University of Hong Kong halted work on growing the SARS virus, officials said last week.

University workers followed the standards for the second-highest security laboratory, known as a BSL-3 facility. But some equipment they used did not meet security standards.

The findings underscore that a laboratory can be a hazardous place for workers and potentially for the public unless the staff members are disciplined and trained to prevent accidental infection.

Although the Singapore student did not transmit the virus to other people, and no infection is known to have resulted from the problem in Hong Kong, experts view these incidents as a wake-up call.

They point to gaps that exist in putting biosafety standards into practice, even in high-tech countries and prestigious universities.

For example, Yale has experienced two accidents. In 1969, a laboratory worker who helped discover the Lassa fever virus at Yale died of an accidental infection. In 1994, another Yale researcher survived infection with the Sabia virus, a cause of hemorrhagic fever.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09…

Attorney Michael Carroll took seven years to research and write his expose of the US Germ Laboratory on Plum Island near New York.  Carroll convincingly alleges that “Lab 257” is the reason that both Lyme Disease and West Nile Virus have infected so many.  His book is an eye opening and disturbing read.  It also had enough of an impact that Homeland Security is building a new lab facility out in Kansas and plans to close Plum Island ASAP. (see below)

From Amazon:  

Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory (Hardcover)

by Michael C. Carroll

http://www.amazon.com/Lab-257-Disturbing-Governments-Laboratory/dp/0060011416/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240866484&sr=1-1

Amazon.com Review

That the United States government engaged in dangerous biological research during World War II will come as no surprise to Americans jaded by revelations of secret medical experiments and radiation exposures. But that the accident-plagued facility where it happened–and continues to happen–is just off the coast of Long Island may alarm many readers of Michael Christopher Carroll’s Lab 257. Carroll, an attorney by trade, gamely takes on complex microbiology and shady government record-keeping in telling the story of Plum Island, home of the Animal Disease Center–no place for a casual picnic. The lab, initially set up by the Army to research ways of destroying Soviet farm animals (and to keep them from destroying ours), has often dealt with bacteria and viruses that can be passed from animals to humans. Carroll draws compelling causal links between Plum Island and the introduction of Lyme disease, West Nile virus, and duck enteritis, all non-native germs that wreaked sudden havoc in North America, and all germs that Plum Island scientists were allegedly working with…

From Publishers Weekly: This strong first effort by New York lawyer Carroll centers on a U.S. government biological research center devoted to studying such exotic and virulent diseases as African swine fever, Rift Valley fever, foot-and-mouth disease and West Nile virus. Plum Island is quietly nestled a mere two miles off of Long Island, 85 miles from New York City, and Carroll argues convincingly that the island is dangerously insecure. Based on sedulous research into declassified government files and interviews with Plum Island scientists and employees, he offers clear and convincing evidence that Plum Island is rife with the potential for a catastrophic disaster eith?r from an accident or, equally frightening, terrorist action. Carroll raises two chilling questions: Is there a connection between Lyme disease and Plum Island research? (Old Lyme, Conn., the location of the disease’s initial 1975 outbreak, is close to Plum Island.) And what about West Nile virus, which also suddenly appeared in close proximity to Plum Island?

It seems that the US Department of Homeland Security has taken Carroll’s Lab 257 to heart as they are planning a brand new high security viral lab in Kansas.  See http://www.ens-newswire.com/en… for the whole story.

Wherever it is built, the high-security facility will replace Plum Island Animal Disease Center on Plum Island, New York, the only location in the United States for research on the live virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease.

The Department of Homeland Security has oversight of Plum Island, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts the research there on foreign animal diseases.

Homeland Security has determined that the existing facility on Plum Island is too small and too old to meet new research needs. The facility also is not appropriate for research on zoonotic disease at biosafety level 4, according to the department and it will be closed once the new facility is operational.

In early December, Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate released the final environmental impact statement for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. The directorate will publish a formal record of decision on January 12, 2009. Facility design is expected to begin this year, with construction to begin in 2010. Plans call for the facility to be operational by 2015.

The new facility will provide the environment suitable for study of virulent diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans such as:

   * Foot and Mouth Disease: Viral disease of domestic and wild cloven-hoofed animals; acute disease characterized by fever, lameness, and vesicular lesions on the feet, tongue, mouth and teats; FMD is considered to be one of the most contagious, infectious diseases known; cost estimates of an introduction of FMD in the U.S. are more than $37 billion.

   * Classical Swine Fever: Wild and domestic swine are the only known natural reservoir; widespread throughout the world and has the potential to cause devastating epidemics, particularly in countries free of the disease; any outbreak of CSF would have serious consequences for domestic and international trade of swine and swine products; improved countermeasures are needed.

   * African Swine Fever: Infected animals have high mortality rates; effective countermeasures are not available for infected animals; no vaccines are available to prevent infection; no treatment exists for ASF and countermeasures need improvements.

   * Rift Valley Fever: Virus affects human beings and cloven-hoofed animals (sheep, goats, cattle, camels, buffalo and deer); suitable countermeasures to respond in the U.S. do not exist; risk for establishment of endemic disease; ranked as a major disease of concern with USDA, DHS, and other stakeholders.

   * Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia: Caused by an infective microorganism (Mycoplasma mycoides); primarily affects cattle including European-bred cattle and Zebu; a related form can affect goats; may survive for days in the environment; no treatment available.

   * Japanese Encephalitis Virus: Similar to St. Louis encephalitis virus; JE virus is amplified in the blood of domestic pigs and wild birds; the virus can infect humans, most domestic animals, birds, bats, snakes and frogs.

   * Nipah Virus – Biosecurity Level 4: Virus was discovered in 1999; causes disease in swine and in humans through contact with infectious animals; mode of transmission between animals and from animals to humans is uncertain (appears to require close contact with infected tissues or body fluids); caused respiratory disease and encephalitis in people in Malaysia and Singapore; no drug therapies have yet been proven to be effective in treating Nipah infection; no countermeasures exist.

• Hendra Virus – Biosecurity Level 4: Formerly called equine morbillivirus; first isolated in 1994; the natural reservoir for Hendra virus is still under investigation; human beings and equines seem to be predominately affected; caused respiratory and neurological disease in horses and humans in Australia.

Mexico eclipses Egypt on flu news tracking on with ManagingNews, as media awakes to Mexican Swine Flu map here http://is.gd/uERE

According to the White House:  “We expect to see more cases of swine flu,” Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a White House briefing. Besser, who was addressing reporters along with other Obama administration officials, said that over time, “more severe” cases of disease are likely to surface. He said that officials so far have identified 20 cases in eight states.

John Brennan, assistant to President Barack Obama for Homeland Security, said the president is monitoring the situation “very closely” and receiving regular updates and briefings.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the declaration of a public health emergency “standard operating procedure,” saying it would help the government better marshal its resources against the disease.

It is Napolitano’s statement and the word out that the DOD has Tamiflu ready to transport that really concerns me.  According to BBC, the swine flu virus is a conglomeration of several flu viruses.  Tamiflu has a slim chance of having any effect at all against such a virulent strain of co-mingled viruses.  Tamiflu was the flu drug that the US bought in bulk while Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense.  At the time, Rumsfeld neglected to inform the public or Congress that he held considerable stock in Roche Pharmaceuticals which was marketing the drug.

You figure it out.  According to sources,

The new Mexican Swine Flu has elements of DNA from the following: avian flu, human flu Type A, human flu Type B, Asian swine flu, and European swine flu.  It is strange that both human and animal viruses from other continents have suddenly produced a new flu during a non-flu season and spreads from human-to-human with a 10% fatality rating.

See official CDC swine flu updates at cdc.gov/swineflu.  The site has been viewed more than 1 Million times on Sat: http://bit.ly/kgu8l #swineflu

More below the fold…

The CDC says the symptoms are similar to regular flu and include: fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing in mild cases. More severe cases of swine flu include runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

According to Britain’s The Independent

Donald Rumsfeld has made a killing out of bird flu. The US Defence Secretary has made more than $5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease.

More than 60 countries have so far ordered large stocks of the antiviral medication – the only oral medicine believed to be effective against the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease – to try to protect their people. The United Nations estimates that a pandemic could kill 150 million people worldwide.

Britain is about halfway through receiving an order of 14.6 million courses of the drug, which the Government hopes will avert some of the 700,000 deaths that might be expected. Tamiflu does not cure the disease, but if taken soon after symptoms appear it can reduce its severity.

The drug was developed by a Californian biotech company, Gilead Sciences. It is now made and sold by the giant chemical company Roche, which pays it a royalty on every tablet sold, currently about a fifth of its price.

Mr Rumsfeld was on the board of Gilead from 1988 to 2001, and was its chairman from 1997. He then left to join the Bush administration, but retained a huge shareholding.